The Super Bowl's most anticipated ad this year is also its most controversial. And when we watch it this Sunday, we should know the back story to understand what's at stake.
I've already written about why the Tim Tebow "Celebrate Life" ad, funded by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, has no place in the Super Bowl. And I've discussed why tackling a highly-charged topic in 30 seconds can only offer a simplistic view of the issues.
But Slate takes it several steps further. In an exceptionally well-researched piece, "The Invisible Dead: The grisly truth about the Super Bowl abortion ad," William Saletan examines the circumstances surrounding Pam Tebow's pregnancy, why abortion was recommended, and why women facing the same grim diagnosis rarely come out with a happy ending.
He makes three key points that place the ad in a necessary context:
1) Pam Tebow wasn't simply facing complications from a difficult pregnancy. As Saletan explains:
According to Pam's account in the Gainesville Sun, she contracted amoebic dysentery and went in a coma shortly before the pregnancy. To facilitate her recovery, she was given heavy-duty drugs. Afterward, doctors told her the fetus was damaged. They diagnosed her with placental abruption, a premature separation of the placenta from the uterine wall. They predicted a stillbirth and recommended abortion.
2) Saletan notes that although placental abruption is rare -- occurring in less than 1% of pregnancies -- it is an extremely dangerous condition for both fetus and mother. In the U.S. , for those women who give birth after an abrupted pregnancy, nearly half the infants are of such low birth weight that low they experience long-term health problems. The perinatal mortality (death in the womb or within 4 weeks of birth) is 12%; outside the U.S., that rate can rise to 38%. Women who continue with an abrupted pregnancy are at risk of internal bleeding, hemorrhagic shock, kidney damage, embolisms, and heart failure. Some estimate that 6% of maternal deaths can be attributed to placental abruption.
3) Saletan points out that the happy ending we're presented with in the Pam Tebow TV commercial is an example of survivor bias:
On Sunday, we won't see all the women who chose life and found death. We'll just see the Tebows, because they're alive and happy to talk about it. In the business world, this is known as survivor bias: Failed mutual funds disappear, leaving behind the successful ones, which creates the illusion that mutual funds tend to beat market averages. In the Tebows' case, the survivor bias is literal. If you're diagnosed with placental abruption, you have the right to choose life. But don't be so sure that life is what you'll get....
If Pam Tebow's abruption had taken a different turn, her son would be just another perinatal mortality statistic, and she might be just another maternal mortality statistic. And you would know nothing of her story, just as you know nothing of the women who have died carrying pregnancies like hers.
Tackling complex issues like abortion in 30 seconds cannot do justice to the intense and passionate viewpoints on either side. Instead, the Tebow abortion ad offers us a Hallmark card version of life and death choices -- a few carefully crafted lines that gloss over a heartrending situation and an impossible choice.What the commercial avoids showing is just as significant as what it promotes.
The commercial doesn't show Pam Tebow looking into the eyes of the four other children she had before Tim and saying, "Mommy wants this special baby, but she might die carrying him. Yet Mommy is willing to risk that and possibly leave you to bring him into the world." In her shoes, would you make that same choice?
Don't believe Focus on the Family's claim that it's not out to sell you something. This isn't as simple as choosing a lite beer or finding a faster way to ship packages worldwide. And the impulse to place it in this context is wrong.
The message shouldn't be shoved in among other attempts to sell consumer goods and services. The Super Bowl isn't the place for life and death decision-making, especially with so many people watching, particularly children.
Related Article: Separation of Turf and State - There's No Room for Abortion Politics in a Super Bowl Ad
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“…half the infants are of such low birth weight that low they experience long-term health problems.
“The perinatal mortality .. is 12%…”
“…6% of maternal deaths can be attributed to placental abruption…”
100% death rate to the baby who is aborted.
“Although you can’t hear them or see them at all, a persons a person no matter how small.” – Horton the Elephant
Saletan’s article might well-researched but it isn’t entirely accurate. What it does not say is just as interesting as what it does and I think that Ms. Tebow, and her handlers, are conveniently leaving something out. Maybe her memory is fuzzy, she was in a coma after all, but even way back in the 80’s, the stone age to some of your readers I’m sure, the treatments for amebiasis were widely available, even in the Philippines (people don’t get that problem here in the States), and were very effective. She would have had to walk around with severe and bloody diarrhea for quite some time for things to get that drastic. Whether the “heavy doses of drugs” that she was given were one or another of the three or four most commonly prescribed for amebiasis, fetal toxicity and demise are not attributable to these medications. Yes, although it is not recommended to take metronidazole (the most widely prescribed) in the first trimester of pregnancy, most drugs aren’t, Ms. Tebow apparently wasn’t pregnant when she took the cure anyway. In fact, the same drug (trade name Flagyl) used to treat amebiasis is also used to help PREVENT abruptio placenta in pregnant women with bacterial infections. Unless she was a chronic user of another drug known to be teratogenic, she would not have had any residual drugs in her system from this particular illness and its treatment, unless maybe she became pregnant while still in her coma? Go figure! No disrespect intended to Ms. Tebow, her son, and her supporters, but the back story doesn’t make sense. No doubt she had a difficult pregnancy, and maybe they don’t know why it happened (see the following for more info about her pregnancy diagnosis: http://mayoclinic.com/health/placental-abruption/DS00623) but when you have to start making up or embellishing stories to get a point across, your credibility is lost and it becomes more and more obvious that you are being used for someone else’s gain. How sad for her family and for the rest of us too. It’s never black and white, is it?
I hope after seeing the commercial you folks attacking the Tebows feel as coarse and inhuman as you look. This wasn’t a political ad, it wasn’t a religious ad, it wasn’t even a “philosophical” ad.
It was an ad about love, and caring, and family.
And if any of those things make you angry, you need serious professional help.
I concur with the writer of the “Slate” article. Pam Tebow may have had a risky pregnancy but decided to continue with it, anyway, having a healthy son. And yes, she did choose to tell her story, but the problem with ads like this–and people like her–is that they tell ALL women to make one choice–and one choice only: have the baby, regardless of the cost, consequences, or desire. This is precisely why feminists call anti-abortionists anti-choice: the name is dead-on.
I think Pam Tebow deserves our deep respect because of the choices she made! She made several choices before she could have arrived at this final choice about her pregnancy. She chose to live a good, moral and ethical life. She chose to put her trust in her faith. She chose to surrender her own life and future to God, the giver of life, who heals, sustains, and loves all. She chose to put her baby ahead of herself. She chose life for her baby. She chose not to have an abortion.
No one, not even the doctors can know for sure what the future holds. But we know for certain that aborting a pregnancy will deny life to an innocent helpless human being. Each person’s life is sacred at every stage. Life is more than material wealth, health, prestige, talent, or power, and certainly above any inconvenience, suffering, discomfort or pain. Life is a gift. It is noble to offer our own life for others, but it is wrong to take away another’s life. Pam Tebow is noble for making this choice. Her family deserves our respect as well because they have supported her choice. Tim is the gift that she has accepted from the very beginning. Praise the Lord!